


Reminiscence

by alma (almajan)



Category: The Fault in Our Stars - John Green, The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
Genre: Afterlife, Heaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1661576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almajan/pseuds/alma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Creative Writing teacher gave us this prompt: Pick a character from a novel we read this semester and pick a character from a book you've read outside of class and make them meet.<br/>My characters are Hazel Grace Lancaster, from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green & The Red Death, from The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reminiscence

**Author's Note:**

> This happens two years after Augustus's passing.  
> Constructive criticism is welcome!
> 
> All Rights Reserved  
> No Copyright Infringement intended

My lungs were filling, my breath coming in short pants, “Mom,” I rasped, “Mom!”

She burst into my room, hair a mess and dressed in pajamas, “ER?” She gasped, taking in my state of duress.

I nodded as my vision went fuzzy.

~

When I woke up, my lungs were no longer hurting. I glanced around, expecting a hospital room, but was surprised to notice a gloomy, colorless room without furniture. I reached up, looking for my breathing tubes, and realized they weren’t there.

I sat up slowly and carefully examined my surroundings, “Where am I?” I asked myself aloud.

“Limbo,” a husky, unused voice responded.

I gasped and turned to see a large figure, shrouded in black, standing by a blue door that I was certain had not been there two seconds ago.

“Limbo?” I echoed in surprise, despite the fact that, as the answer left my mouth, it felt correct.

The figure nodded and I took in a shaky breath, “Why?”

“You are dying, Hazel Grace Lancaster,” the figure replied, its voice fluctuating between masculine and feminine.

I blinked, “What?”

“The cancer; it has spread farther and your lungs are full of fluid,” it responded solemnly.

“Who are you?” I questioned, unable to articulate the panic filling my bones.

“Death,” was its simple answer.

My breath caught in my throat and I was suddenly angry, “I can’t be dying; I went to a checkup last week ad everything was the same as it has been for the past month,” I retorted with a glare.

It shook its hooded head softly, “Hazel Grace Lancaster, it is your turn,” it said softly.

My eyes burnt with unshed tears, “My parents. Isaac. Kaitlyn,” I whispered, “I can’t leave them.”

The figure's voice softened, “Come with me.”

I carefully stood and walked toward it as it opened the blue door.

~

She moved closer to me hesitantly and I shifted to the side, allowing her access into the first of her reminiscence rooms.

As she stepped into the room, her eyes widened, “What is this?”

“It represents Augustus Waters,” I replied as I observed her.

She nodded absentmindedly, “It’s the same blue as his eyes,” she agreed, referring to the paint covering the walls.

Hazel walked farther into the room, gently touching everything.

“Every object is something that reminds me of him,” she said, her voice thickened by the urge to cry.

I nodded as I contemplated the completely blue room, expecting the theme, but vaguely surprised by the range of objects; blue video games, blue cigarettes, blue books, a blue wheelbarrow, and the words, “Okay? Okay,” painted across every surface in varying shades of blue.

“What is the purpose of this?” Hazel asked me weakly.

I gazed at her, “It is a journey that we will be embarking on together. It is meant to convince you that you need to let go of your earthly life.”

She frowned and I could see the stubborn set to her shoulders, “I can’t leave my family. They still need me. I cannot hurt them.”

I shook my hooded head lightly, knowing she would not be able to comprehend my meaning even if I were to explain myself. I glided to the newly-appeared green door, “Come along, Hazel.”

She walked forward, but took a second to glance one last time at the blue room that symbolized her lost lover.

She stepped through the door and laughed softly, a smile splitting her lips, “The Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set that Seeks the Butts of Children,” she said on a chuckle.

I simply dipped my head in acknowledgement, gesturing to a wall that held an image of Hazel and Augustus together. Once Hazel looked at it, it began to move. She jumped slightly, startled, as Augustus’s voice rang through the room, “You realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you."

Hazel’s eyes filled and her fingertips touched the wall, the video-like memory still playing.

“You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are,” Augustus finished.

Hazel’s handwriting filled the wall at that moment, spelling out one of her intimate thoughts, “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

I read the words and pondered on them, wondering – briefly – what it would be like to love someone. Hazel’s sob startled me and I turned to her, “You are sad?” I asked cautiously.

“If I were to die, I imagine I could see him again, but I can’t die. I cannot be the grenade that tears everything apart,” she explained softly to me, hiccupping slightly from tears.

I regarded the 18 year old girl in front of me, the girl who had been battling terminal cancer for five years against all odds, before turning toward the vivid orange door across the room.

She followed.

~

I dried my tears and walked into the next room, anticipating Amsterdam. I was not disappointed.

There were 3 orange suitcases against one wall, the blue sundress I had worn to dinner with Gus was now orange and hanging from a hook, and there were hundreds upon hundreds of orange tulips scattered around the entire room. I noticed an orange copy of An Imperial Affliction sitting on an orange paisley chair that mimicked the chair that had been in the hotel room in Amsterdam.

On the left wall was a quote written in Augustus’s handwriting. As I started to read, a lone tear slipped down my cheek.

It said, “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you."

The figure, Death, stood next to me, “Augustus told you that he believed in Something with a capital S,” it stated.

I nodded gently, “As do I,” I replied quietly.

Death turned toward the ornate violet door and opened it for me, “The afterlife is exactly what each person wants it to be like,” it informed me in its ambiguous voice. “Each person lives in the Heaven of their making, filled with their happiest moments, or the life they wished they lived. Some even stay in the place they loved the most while they were alive and continue to live their lives as if they hadn’t died.”

I nodded softly in understanding, “Am I in Augustus’s Heaven?” I asked gently.

“No. The memories you two made are, the things you shared are, but you cannot be in his Heaven until you have passed on. The living cannot dwell in Heaven, even as apparitions.”

“If I die, will I join him?”

“If you desire it to be so: yes. You two may even grow old together and raise the children you weren’t able to have. They will never affect the living world, but they will be with you forever,” Death told me.

My heart pounded lightly with the new information and I stepped through the doorway into my purple room. It was another memory video.

This memory featured me, Isaac, and Augustus. I immediately recognized the Last Good Day. It started.

“Hazel Grace,” Augustus said, “You look ravishing."

The memory continued and I laughed through my tears as Isaac recited his eulogy for Augustus, “Augustus Waters talked so much that he’d interrupt you at his own funeral. And he was pretentious: Sweet Jesus Christ, that kid never took a piss without pondering the abundant metaphorical resonances of human waste production."

Isaac ended with, “I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him."

By this point, I was weeping silently. When, in the memory, it was my turn to speak, I spoke alongside Memory-Me, “Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life,” I breathed out.

I turned from the wall, cutting the memory off short. I saw the black door and I knew.

“His funeral?” I asked brokenly.

The figure just stepped to the side, allowing me in.

~

Hazel walked in and sat in the lone black chair. There were pictures covering the walls, floor to ceiling. Every picture contained a moment from Augustus’s funeral. I stayed silent as Hazel drank in all of the details.

“Death?”

I looked to her, “Yes?”

“Why?”

“You needed to truly remember him. You needed to remember what you have been missing for two years.”

“Why?” She asked once more, her voice raw with emotion.

“So that it would be easier for you to let go,” I responded gently.

She stood slowly and let her fingertips dance across the pictures, “Okay,” she whispered, but I knew it was not aimed at me.

~

I entered my white room and it followed silently.

“It’s a hospital room,” I astutely observed. I moved toward the hospital bed before stopping. A 3-dimensional almost-hologram appeared. It was my parents hovering over a 14 year old me, letting me go. They were crying, but I could see the acceptance on their faces. The scene changed and I was 15, picking out my death day dress. Suddenly, the image started to rapidly shift, each new image an instance where my parents were accepting that I was dying. Then it abruptly stopped. Mom and Dad were holding hands and looking at me, “Sweetie, you’re not a grenade. You’re our daughter,” Mom said lovingly before they faded.

It wasn’t until they were gone that I realized that I was crying again.

I looked up at Death, “They’re going to be okay, aren’t they?” I asked rhetorically.

Death simply turned and opened a pale yellow door. I walked in.

~

The walls were covered in Encouragements. I watched as Hazel Grace Lancaster read every single one.

She then started to read them aloud, “ ‘True love is born from hard times’ ‘Without pain, how could we know joy?’ ‘We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either’ ‘Some infinities are bigger than other infinities’ ‘You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you.' ”

She stopped and turned to me, “I am not a grenade. Everyone alive will be okay; they will see me again. And I miss Augustus Waters.”

I stayed silent for a moment, “Are you ready?” I asked softly.

“I am ready,” she answered decisively.

“You are a truly remarkable human being, Hazel Grace Lancaster,” I said gently before taking her soul to Somewhere with a capital S.

~

Everything was intensely bright and I lifted my arm to shield my eyes. My other hand rubbed my chest lightly, acknowledging the fact that my breathing came with perfect ease.

Suddenly, I was wrapped in sinewy arms and my feet were no longer making contact with the ground.

“Hazel Grace, you are beautiful!” Augustus’s deep, smoky voice exclaimed joyously.

A grin parted my lips and I wrapped my arms around his neck tightly before kissing him with all the strength I had.

“Augustus Waters,” I breathed out, “I love you.”

His bright child-like smile greeted me, he looked like the Augustus I had first met at Support Group; strong and healthy.

Tears pooled in my eyes, “Oh, Augustus,” I sobbed.

He held me firmly and stroked my hair gently, “I love you, Hazel Grace Lancaster. Okay?”

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have this tagged as having an original character, but that is simply because AO3 doesn't have The Red Death in their character list :)  
> Also, in Edgar Allen Poe's story, The Red Death is a personification of a plague, in my story The Red Death is simply Death.  
> I did this because I believe that Death appears to different people in different ways, and during Poe's story Death was primarily by plague.


End file.
